accident – MessageWeek

Corona Virus Insurance

Travel the world they said. Seek adventure, the billboard said. If it feels good, do it, they chorused.

However, the natural law of consequence and risk was never mentioned.

Consider, for a monent, that the risk of being infected with the coronavirus over the next few months is generally assessed at the moment as being very high, given its virulence and the little we know about it. So let’s ask: would a comprehensive insurance policy mitigate against all possible outcomes? Of course, not. What about other risks? The mystery of the missing Malaysian aircraft MH370, lost without trace under inexplicable circumstances? What were the chances of survival for those passengers, insured or not?

The dangers and risks associated with everyday life are enormous. One microscopic virus can trigger our entire immune system to fail. One small asteroid, they say, could destroy life on earth. One split-second traffic accident, and too many victims spend the rest of their lives wheel-chair bound.

Is there anything then that might mitigate this sense of foreboding risk – granted that for most of the time we put it out of mind?

This video recounts a recent mid-air emergency, and so explores these questions, directing our certainty not at insurance, or time and chance, or even our best laid plans. Instead, we highlight a certainty and transcendent promise of enormous value.

Let us know what you think in the YouTube comments. And subscribe anyway, whether you agree or take an entirely different view.

Highs and lows of film making

Are you a budding film maker, script writer, or enjoy animation? We’re looking for helpers for a film we plan to shoot next year, titled (we think) The Ezekiel Vision. Much of the film will be filmed from the air. We’ll be filming at airports, cemeteries and over sweeping valleys. We will need actors, young and old. There’s a great story to tell that involves you, yes you, your family, your loved ones, your grand and great grand parents. So, what is going to happen?

We can only tell the future from what is already determined! To know the future we must understand the past. And we must also understand how the past was written and by whom.

The Ezekiel Vision will be a film like no other, and already in gearing up for production, we believe we have a story to tell.

The accident featured below happened quite unexpectedly. For me it was a great disappointment. Thinking about it now, the setback perhaps might be nothing less than the price paid (we pray) for what will be one of our best films yet.

Over the past year, apart from work on the film script, we have bought various props and equipment for the Ezekiel film. Six months ago I bought an AR Drone 2 quadrocopter and have enjoyed learning to fly it. The film quality from the inbuilt camera, however, wasn’t good enough. Besides, the AR Drone really couldn’t successfully lift the GoPro Hero3 action camera. So more recently I bought a hexacopter with a camera gimbal – and the quality of aerial footage is absolutely brilliant.

So here’s the story:

28 December 2013

There’s more to the story. After weeks of waiting for components to arrive by courier, rebuilding, testing and fine-tuning, tonight we finally took the Storm 6 for its maiden test flight.

I had waited for days for it to become perfectly calm. (I am learning what it means to spend a whole lot more time preparing and doing pre-flight checks and tests than actual flight time). This difference with this rebuild was that we upgraded to the NAZA-M V2 GPS system, giving greater stability in both take-offs and landings.

I think we’ll be able to film the Ezekiel scenes with the GoPro Hero 3 camera and without having to upgrade further. Of course, I would have liked to have filmed it with a BlackMagic Pocket Cinema Camera, but that together with the ZenMuse Gimbal on a pro-grade UAV is still dependent on prices stabilising, and thus will have to wait.

We’ll keep you posted as we work on each individual film shoot. There’s some really exciting as well as challenging work ahead.

1 January 2014

Welcome to the new civil year. Here’s hoping that it is a good one. We’re edging closer to the filming of the Ezekiel Vision film, with more practise flights testing stability, manoeuvrability and the capacity to control in adverse conditions, such as unexpected wind gusts/shifts.

Battery time still remains an issue, and this it appears depends on the health of each individual battery. Note also, if you have a heart for this kind of ministry, as well as skills you would like to contribute to this film project, then we would love to hear from you.

January 7, 2014

We’ve finally started filming the Ezekiel Vision film. Today’s shot comes from the little old cemetery on the York-Quairading Road in Western Australia. Whether this particular shot makes it into the final film we don’t know yet as we’ll be shooting the same shot again over the next few days.

John Klassek

Rebel Bikies

I normally reserve this space for gentler, perhaps more spiritual topics. And so I felt a little notorious by uploading a short video yesterday of the Rebels motorcycle club. All of a sudden, some 1000 bikies on their noisy Harley Davidsons came thundering through the wheatbelt town of Cunderdin where I was working. I was relieved to see a generous police escort.

These men are quite unique. They’re “family”. And while we may not agree with some of their activities, or feel a bit afraid when they walk into a tavern, they have something we all wish for: a great sense of brotherhood and belonging.

Ask yourself: How many good friends do you have? I don’t mean work mates or sporting buddies. What I mean are people you have a deep, deep (non-sexual) friendship with. How many of them can you implicitly trust? Most of us will probably admit that our good lifetime friends can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

You don’t have to ride a Harley Davidson, have a tattoo, or grow a long beard to identify with someone who’ll be a life-long trusting friend. Simply pause in prayer, and the one who longs to be your best friend will, in confidence, listen to your every word. His name is Jesus.